Maybe a $1000 hooker could change my mind…

5-27-10.
But I don’t think sex is as much fun as what I’ve been having in the last 3 weeks. Seriously, something that makes you so happy is usually illegal. 

Corsica is amazing.  A Swiss rider called it savage, and I think that’s a good word. The landscape is awe-inspiring – it just makes your jaw drop in its raw wildness. Think of the rugged, snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada, jutting straight out of the sea. Man seems to be surviving here, not controlling the landscape like most places he inhabits. Towns cling to hillsides like chitons on a reef. The coastal roads around the town of Porto make Hiway 1 by Big Sur look like a freeway. If you have a fear of heights, don’t bother coming.

The landscape – there are beautiful stands of pine up high, and some roads are lined with dense ferns. The tree line is only around 4700’, but it seems alpine. The highest peak is around 8800’.  At lower elevations, there are dense forests that from a distance look like low chaparral, but can be anywhere from knee-high to 20’. Wildflowers are incredible. Brilliant reds, yellows, whites and violets everywhere. Lavender is rampant. And where there is no vegetation, there is only rock. But not just any rock – stark, majestic, jagged granite in vivid pinks, reds, green and white.

The critters – There’s a bird that keeps waking me up. Its call sounds like “We’re all going extinct!”  Another bird sounds like a smoke alarm warning beep.  I was sitting on a beach and 2 cows waded through shallow water right up to me as if I should have some treat for them. I’ve had to stop for goats in the middle of the road, and pigs know if they hold up traffic, tourists will feed them.  I tell ya, it’s an amazing place.

The silence.  I’ve found places here quieter than almost anywhere. There is no surf, so at the beach, you can hear each and every little pop and burble when water moves around a rock. The wind seems almost apologetic with tiny lisps. A solitary bird can sound cacophonous with a single warble.

Damn pigs want to be in every picture!